Page 95 - Because I know, I can let go

Now we’ve come to Suan Mokkh Nanachat, so we want to live with the eightfold path itself.
In truth the ānāpānasati practised here is the eightfold path, it’s the same thing, but if it’s
not explained why it is the same then it won’t be seen as being such, if it is explained then

it will be. Ānāpānasati sixteen steps is the eightfold path, is sīla, samādhi, and pañña, is the
tri-sikhā, is samatha and vipassanā, what the Buddha called the ‘middle way’, avoiding the
extremes of behavior, of sensual indulgence, of asceticism.

The middle way the Buddha taught was called the majjhimāpatipāda, and consisted, first

of all, in sammāditthi, right view, or understanding - but right understanding of what?
Right understanding of dukkha, of the cause of dukkha, of the remainderless quenching
of dukkha, and, finally, of the way to the remainderless quenching of dukkha. This is

sammāditthi. We find that whenever there’s any clinging there’s dukkha, the cause of
dukkha is upādāna, clinging, while upādāna arises from tanhā, blind desire, and tanhā
arises from avijjā, from ignorance. This is the cause of dukkha. When clinging, desire,
and ignorance are quenched, dukkha will quench. Practising in the way of the eightfold
path involves the development of sīla, samadhi and paññā, or, if we prefer, of samathā

and vipassanā; this is the way to quench dukkha. Now, we try to see, to understand in this
way, this is sammāditthi - or, try to understand the five aggregates, that is, rūpa, vedanā,
saññā, sankhāra, and viññāna, or, the inner and outer āyatana, the six senses and their six

objects, along with the six kinds of viññāna, consciousness, the six kinds of phassa, of sense
contacts, as well as the feelings arising from those contacts, or, to cut it short, try to see
nāma and rūpa as impermanent, changeful, as dukkha, as anattā, and when we can see
like this that’s called sammāditthi.

Seeing properly in just one way isn’t enough, the mind has to be improved in the way it
thinks too. Proper thinking is thinking removed from carnality, removed from ill-will, from
oppression, this kind of thinking is called sammāsankappa. When we practice like this

we control the mind so that it dwells in its object on each level of ānāpānasati. When the
mind is thus it’s without bad thoughts, without base, unskillful thinking, its thoughts are
right thoughts, which advances the noble path accordingly.

Striving assiduously to make the mind peaceful is sammāvayāma, right effort.

...I can let go 95